*Un-named* Vs

[VS FTW]

Hey guys, i picked up my VS exec sII (grandma car) for 1.2k off a friend's grandma with the intentions of having it ready for my P's, working myself and not blowing my wallet. Just before he gave it to me it had a full service, with all new spark plugs, electrics and full brake system (stock but brand new).
So it started out like this:
oh and also, high tension springs..







I wrote up myself a mod's list and started learning details about the car. Wasnt on my list, but due to a good reccmendation (and $20 from mum ) i bought a gregorys, on of the best decisions ive made about the car. The idea of the car was to get it as nice as possible, while keeping expenses down as school takes alot of time so money is spread thin. My other goal was to learn as much about cars as i could, so most of the work will be done by me. So here was my list;

[x] Clean, clean, clean, polish, polish, shine
[x] De badge (except for lions)
[ ] Remove side strip
[x] Mudflaps
[x] Engine fixing - to stock
[x] Taillights
[x] Good sound system (custom setup?)
- Panhard rod
[x] Springs
[x] Remove aerial
[x] Clear side indicators
[x] Painted ecotec cover
[x] Chrome window trims
[x] Glovebox
[x] Wheels
[x] Tint
- Exhaust

Brought it home into the driveway was pretty dirty so firstly cleaned the car head to toe, including the whole engine bay, and engine. In the next few days i set about the debaging, removed one of the side strips, mudflaps anything that was free and makes a difference. For the sound system i was thinking alpine all round. Headunit, speaker, amps and subs. But i landed on 4 s-type speakers all round with one of the higher model sony headunits for an extremely well bargained price. Stickin to budget felt good. Coming in below was even better. Installed the speakers and headunit myself saving some more money and some good learning.



The battery decided to go the way of old yeller, and i am trying to build a quality car so this was an important one. Shopped around and got a high range century with extra power and kick for running the sound system with the engine on and off.

Fixed up the winding system in the driver and rear passenger doors now all windows running smoothly.

Got my tax return so now it was time to really get somewhere. Bought front springs (sl) and rear springs (ssl), a new starter motor, rear light globes, tailights, LED rooflight, indicator stalks, plate lights, wiper blades, and my subs and amps.

Installed the new tailights



Sadly with rego coming up i needed to get it transferred into my name which meant roady. Put it through bridgestone who gave me new stockies , engine mounts, link pin kits, various globes, handbrake fix and adjustment, windscreen, tint, panhard rod, new shocks, engine oil leak fixed, few other bits and peices cant quite read his handwriting haha.

Rerego time came around so that stopped some work from happening for a while. I put in a gates race belt (3x stronger and heat resistant) as it was on sale for cheaper than a standard belt haha, i do know it only makes .01 rwkw but hey, everything makes a difference.

Got a great deal from a friend in geelong for new rear bumper, bonnet, bootlid (with wing) and clear side indicators. The car came home from that with a bit of a different look but two unfortunates. The wing means when i "pop" the boot nothing pops, you have to get out and use the key. And secondly, after hours of swapping the bonnets, changing, adjusting and with dark approcahing we got it right and closed, BUT then it doesnt open, you have to go under the front and use a flat-head to pop the bonnet :P this is yet to be fixed, but the car looks better >> (sorry kinda cheated for these photos and took the car back to what it looked like)











I then decided the car really needed its kick and stopped putting off the subs and amps, so off to jb for my wiring kit. Spent a good day in the sun installing my subs and amps figuring out which wire does what haha. Finishing the day with a nice sound in the car was perfect. The 2 cadence subs and amps look nice and sound great. Theyre not amazing but again got a great deal on them and i dont need super loud thumping bass that ruins songs anyway, not to put them down they do still sound above average and go perfectly with the speaker setup for cruising loud not blasting.



Something decided to go wrong with the immobilizer which killed the battery.. i then killed it more by thinking wtf turn on car! you can still play music whats wrong with you > fu*%*&%. A short trip to supershit with my recipt and the brand new battery was in the car (again). Somewhere along this process the ignition barrel decided to kark it, so im ringing around for quotes, looks like locksmiths is the best for a new barrel and two keys.

Bought some chrome window trims which will make a nice difference to the car, hopefully.


~To Do~
- Full Interior lighting setup
- Lowered shocks
- Paint Calipers
- Roof lining
[x] Custom boot mount for amps
- Lighting in footwell
- Paint gas bonnet struts
[x] Super polished plenum
- Colour coded mirrors
- Sub control
- Lsd diff
- Level 3 dash with blue lighting
- Chrome door moulds and handles
- SS kit (with foglights)
- Engine improvements (spacers, CAI kit, memcal, bored throttle body.. ideas?)
- Custom Cold Air Intake setup with DUAL intakes
- Interceptors, centre caps, chrome rings, whitewalls
- Some spraying
- Stage 3 shift kit


If i decide to keep this as my next car instead of selling and then buying a v8, ill do a manual conversion and swap all the parts over to a v8 rolling shell

[F l a k]

Looks nice and clean man, sounds like a good buy at that price too.

Good to see you have a proper and sensible list of mods and plans

If you need any help feel free to ask. Need more pics and some of the engine bay lol

[nathanVY]

Looks good man, but please put calais tail lights in. Those clear ones just look awful .

Need any help with stuff just yell!

[VS_Pete_1]

Nice pickup mate

[F l a k]

please put calais tail lights in. Those clear ones just look awful .

Agreed lol, no offence

[elmaso]

decent!

and is that the roof lining in the shot with the parcel shelf? lol

[rk has a vn]

Not bad man

[VS FTW]

Yeah gotta add roof lining to the list! im still undecided about the tailights, i kinda like them because no one has them, but then thats probably for a reason haha

Tomorrow ill give it a good clean, take photos. its about time i took some recent ones and before the trims too. Im planning to do a little custom boot of my own. Ill mount a wooden board under the carpet in the boot up agains the back seats so i have somewhere sturdier for the amps, distributor block and wiring in general to mount. and a nicer look to it.

[nathanVY]

Yeah gotta add roof lining to the list! im still undecided about the tailights, i kinda like them because no one has them, but then thats probably for a reason haha

Tomorrow ill give it a good clean, take photos. its about time i took some recent ones and before the trims too. Im planning to do a little custom boot of my own. Ill mount a wooden board under the carpet in the boot up agains the back seats so i have somewhere sturdier for the amps, distributor block and wiring in general to mount. and a nicer look to it.

Yeah, they look *ok* on some dark blue cars... that's it. but calais lights look better.

Ill show you photos of my boot install if you're interested haha, might give you some ideas.

[VS FTW]

yeah sure mate very interested. im cutting everything out today for it

[VS FTW]

decided it was time to install these chrome trims, so gave them a good shine up and went about it. pretty simple really and comes out much nicer it makes a big difference. So heres the car as is today (sorry shitty phone pics);

[VS FTW]

Okay so i need some advice on radiators and fans. My radiator has a broken connnection for the fluid pipe so i pulled out the radiator and fan. Where should i go from here, i want to improve the car so would a higher end radiator and fan make a difference? what sort of difference? Thanks guys.

[F l a k]

Was there a crack in the plastic side part of the radiator near where the top hose connects or something?

If so I'd say just go buy yourself a new, decent quality standard replacement radiator i.e. Natrad, which you should be able to get for not much more than $100, unless you need them to install it for you. If you wanted you could look into getting a V8 radiator but I don't really see the point. If you want it to run cooler just hit up MACE for an 82 degree thermostat. MACE Engineering 82 Degree Thermostat

Btw, now is a great time to replace all your radiator hoses and clamps if they are a little dodgy or you want nice shiny ones like me lol.

Oh and the chrome trim looks much classier

[VS FTW]

thats what happened and then the plastic broke off but still attachable (until it blew off). and im enjoying the crhome

Yeah ive gotta decide between stock or upgraded, it depends on prices really. and seeing as the thermostat is only $22, ill definitely get that thanks can you get a 72 degree thermostat or anything?

Im wanting to replace everything really, hoses, clamps, connections, radiator and fan. This may sound dumb but is the fan just part of the radiator system or is it a seperate item like a cooling fan? Because i think ill replace that too

[F l a k]

Mate I'd just go stock, you really don't need anything more unless you're planning to make it a burnout pig lol. And see there's really no middle ground between a standard good quality radiator and a high end alloy one, which will cost a shit ton and give you no benefit at all for this application. I don't think you can get a thermostat any lower, you wouldn't want it as you still want the engine running at the right temp, which the 82 degree one will do.

With the hoses, you can get a pack that has them all in it I think which might make it easier, and as far as connectors go you don't need to do any except the two on the inlet manifold, but that is a fairly long job as you need to pull the inlet manifold itself off, but with a car of this age it's definitely worth doing. Clean it up and get a gasket pack (inlet, throttle body, thermostat etc) and do it all including the hose connections which unfortunately you have to get from Holden and are stupidly expensive.

There's no point replacing the fan. It's separate and electric. It can be removed with four nuts and the one plug.

[VS FTW]

Awesome, ill stick with the 82 thermostat and order it asap.

Wheres the best place to get a new radiator from? Is there anyway to make the hoses look a bit nicer? Whats an inlet manifold?

[F l a k]

Adrad probably, although I got my Adrad radiator from Natrad Explain that lol

Yeah with the hoses just hit them with some of the Armour All protectant and they come up awesome.

The inlet manifold is the silver metal bit in the middle of the engine, under the plastic engine cover.

Other advice; get a workshop manual if you haven't yet, and if you have spare monies, get a couple of MACE spacers :P

[VS FTW]

Yeah i was looking at the spacers they seem like the mod you get the most performance out of, im pretty keen on them. Haave you/anyone you know used them before? If so results please.

*facepalm* lol the manifold, i know what that is! speaking of which i need an immaculately polished plenum. Im thinking for next engine mods ill do the plenum and an ss indcution with the chrome pipe coming out of the filter box to the mainfold (possibly with spacers )

[nathanVY]

Manifold spacer made a huge difference in acceleration and throttle response, generally made the whole car much more fun to drive.

[VS FTW]

Have you got yours spaced between the plenum and manifold?

[F l a k]

i need an immaculately polished plenum

There's a how to on here, but there's also a guy who sells them on here too. Check the For Sale section.

ss indcution with the chrome pipe

No a MACE cold air intake for the win . Also I wouldn't get a chrome pipe because they look tacky and if they are metal I'd say they probably increase your intake temperature which is bad.

[VS FTW]

If doing it myself is an option thats what ill go for (depending how $ work out) but if buying will be close to within cost then ill just buy. Whats withe the MACE obsession flak.. sneaky promoting? hmm, wouldnt a CAI burn too much fuel? would it work if i had big ss induction to CAI?

[F l a k]

Well I have a lot of MACE stuff and I think as far as V6 performance goes they are the best. Steve is the easiest guy to talk to, answers all your questions promptly, and seriously has the best customer service ever. All their stuff works well, and is really good value for money.

No the CAI will give you better fuel economy lol, and nah there's no point and a lot of custom work involved with no benefit.

[nathanVY]

Have you got yours spaced between the plenum and manifold?

Yep one of these.

COLD AIR INTAKE MANIFOLD INSULATOR 25MM FOR HOLDEN VS-VY ECO - Mace Engineering Group

Might get a lid spacer too if i can be stuffed...

[VS FTW]

WHAT! a cold air intake improves economy!!? i always thought theyd help chew through fuel!
Do MACE have any stores or is it just online?

Nathan do you have to have a cold air intake to use that spacer or is that just the name :S